Page 41 - MYM 2015

into prospects’ minds was a series of television commercials showing happy owners driving their BMWs over winding roads.
With the launch of its “driving” campaign, BMW became a very successful global brand. Last year, BMW sold 1.81 million vehicles on the global market, making it the world’s largest-selling luxury-vehicle brand, ahead of Audi (1.74 million) and Mercedes-Benz (1.65 million.)
Consider KFC and Coca-Cola. KFC is the leading fast- food restaurant chain in China with some 5,000 units in 800 cities. To most Chinese people, the letters “K F C” mean nothing, but Colonel Sanders is known as a famous American and the founder of the fried-chicken brand. That’s why the exterior of every KFC outlet has a giant picture of Colonel Sanders.
Colonel Sanders is the brand’s visual hammer.
Consider Coca-Cola, the world’s third most-valuable brand, worth $79.2 billion, according to Interbrand, a global consultancy.
One reason Coca-Cola has been able to conquer the world is its visual hammer, an old-fashioned “contour” bottle that communicates the authenticity of the brand. It’s the original cola, the real thing.
What is surprising about Coca-Cola’s 6.5-oz. “contour” glass bottle is how few of them are actually sold. No matter. The Coke contour bottle is a powerful visual hammer. A Coke can, on the other hand, is just another can of cola.
While Coca-Cola has consistently used the same visual hammer, its verbal nails have been repeatedly changed. In the last 110 years, Coke has used 57 different advertising slogans. Most of these are totally forgettable like the 1941 slogan, Coca-Cola is Coke!
But four of these advertising slogans could have become long-lasting verbal nails if they had
been used continuously.
• 1922: Thirst knows no season.
• 1929: The pause that refreshes.
• 1963: Things go better with Coke.
• 1969: It’s the real thing.
The real thing, in particular, is a strong verbal nail because it ties in well with the visual hammer. The bottle symbolizes the authenticity of the brand and The real thing verbalizes that authenticity. None of
the other three slogans, as good as they are, connect as well to the brand’s visual hammer.
Coca-Cola has been using its visual hammer on cans, cups, trucks, advertising, billboards, calling cards, you name it. Very successfully too. Recently, Diet Coke passed regular Pepsi-Cola to become the second- largest cola brand in the American market.
Coke has a visual hammer and Pepsi doesn’t.
Consider the Marlboro cowboy. An even more-effective visual hammer than the Coca- Cola contour bottle is the Marlboro cowboy. Introduced in 1953, the cowboy turned Marlboro into the world’s best-selling cigarette. (The brand’s share of the American market is 43 percent, more than the next 13 cigarette brands combined.)
Since its initial launch 62 years ago, Marlboro has never run an ad, a commercial or an in-store promotion without using cowboy imagery. Nor has Marlboro ever used a woman in its “cowboy” advertising. (Actually, since its “re-launch,” as Marlboro was once a woman’s cigarette, but that’s another story.)
Many brands have tried to copy the success of the Marlboro cowboy. Pick up a magazine, look at a newspaper, turn on your television set, surf the Internet, and you’ll nd hundreds of visuals that try to mimic the cowboy.
Monkeys, donkeys, dogs, frogs, elephants, kids, babies, sexy women, older women, sexy older women, hot men, older men, hot older men, celebrities and many other visuals. Most of these visuals never become hammers. Why is this?
Because art directors select visuals that are funny, serious, cute, sexy, or famous without rst considering what the verbal ought to be. You need two things to build a brand. A visual hammer and a verbal nail. And the nail comes rst.
At the time of Marlboro’s introduction, the majority
of competitive brands were “unisex.” Cigarette
brands that made the classic mistake of appealing to everybody. Marlboro was the rst masculine cigarette. That’s the verbal nail. And what could be more masculine than a cowboy?
Most brand visuals never become hammers. They might be funny, but unless they are also functional they will do little for the brand.
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